


To Trip at the Sound of Goodbye

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Series: Femslash Feb 2019 [6]
Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Angst, Dialogue Light, F/F, Femslash February 2019, Sharing Clothes, Short, but i cant remember the exact line, but not sweet lmao, its literally just prose w 4 lines of dialogue, this is inspired by like one line
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 07:43:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17679269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: Lou's on the west coast when she gets the phone call.It's funny - she almost ignores it.Day 6: Helpless





	To Trip at the Sound of Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this is a wip tht i started when infirst saw the movie almost a year ago, promptly forgot abt, and the refound when i was combing my wip folder to see if i could repurpose and finish anything to save me a bit of time
> 
> this was inspired by a scene i dont remember exactly bc again, its been nearly a year, but vaguely i recall it being like. right after debbie gets back her asking lou if shed worn her clothing or smthn like tht
> 
> title from helplessly hoping by crosby stills, & nash which ive never listened to it just came up while i was genius-ing songs w helpless in them gkdjfkd

Lou's on the west coast when she gets the phone call.

It's funny - she almost ignores it.

She's standing on a balcony in silk pajamas with some warm-colored liquor in the crystal glass in her hand. The sun is putting up one last stand on the horizon, bathing her in slick light that she closes her eyes against. She inhales the city below her, feels it so deeply in her chest that it's an almost picturesque moment.

And then her phone rings.

But it doesn't. It just sounds like the idle chatter of any phone - she's got three, she knows. Her eyes are still closed and cars are still honking in the distance and that damn phone keeps ringing.

And then her eyes snap open.

She has three phones, and not a single one sounds like that.

She curses, nearly drops her glass to the pavement below, and tramps back into her cramped bedroom. She deposits her glass on the nearest flat surface - her dresser - and throws open the drawer just below it.

Shoving her hand to the back, she extracts the still clattering phone from where it's taped to the roof of the drawer. 

She flips it open and accepts the call before its even anywhere near her face.

"Deb?" 

This is a burner, only for the utmost emergencies. They've never used it before, never had to-

"I need you to do a couple things for me."

Lou closes her eyes, but there's no sunlight that knocks incessantly from the other side.

"How long have we got?"

"Not long enough."

Lou nods to herself. "Get to it then."

\-----

Lou's on a plane within the hour. Window seat, just what she likes. She's got one carry on with her necessities, and that's it. 

One passport, just in case things manage to get worse, a wallet full of I.D.s for if they don't, a wad of cash, and two changes of clothes.

She's in her usual now, no powder blue pajamas in sight - they're back with whatever peace she had accumulated.

Now she finds herself in black jeans and a black shirt and a blacker leather jacket. Her booted heels are already pinching her feet, but she isn't focused in the moment nearly enough to know that.

She waves off a well-meaning flight attendant with however much of a pleasant smile she can muster and goes back to nursing the coffee she's been trying to get through since the flight began.

Her mind is racing with everything that has to be done, everyone that needs to be contacted and warned, every hidey-hole to be checked and trail to be burned.

It all weights her shoulders, but not as much as the thought tickling at the back of her throat. It sits heavily, clawing at the fragile skin there, making it hard to swallow - hard to _breathe_.

But she can't worry about that just now. So, so much to be done before then.

\-----

Lou hasn't stood on this front stoop in…too long.

There's no yellow police tape or out of place faces around, but she can feel the shift in the air. The brokeness of everything.

The moon is overhead, its hands on the glossy leather of her jacket as if that's comfort. As if that will make anything better.

But she steels herself, and she pulls a bobby pin from her hair and jimmies the lock quickly and lets the door swing open.

It's chillier, she thinks, as her boot snaps against the first floorboard. She used to find comfort in these walls, but it isn't there anymore.

That might be her own fault, though. 

She bumps the door shut with the bottom of her boot and continues forward, letting her hand trail over the wallpaper.

She knows she can't cut the lights on in the brownstone, knows it'll bring unnecessary attention and dangerous questions, but the feeling of that wallpaper is enough to guide her anyway.

She doesn't step lightly, though. Because if there was one thing she'd promised to this house, it was that she would never change herself to try to fit inside of it. 

The kitchen is her first stop. It's empty, but that's nothing new. The cupboards are bare, all the doors thrown open so the world will know, but Lou knows if she checks the drawer by the fridge it'll be full of takeout menus.

But she can't dwell on that, so she does what she's there to do. Moving toward the sink and the worn doors it sits above, she drops into a squat and pulls them open.

There's a few meager cleaning supplies scattered about, but she shoves them to the side so she can get at the pipe.

It's barely two minutes later when she stands and stuffs a Ziploc baggy in her pocket, heading quickly for the exit.

She pulls slicing sheets of paper from where they're taped to the back of framed photos and folders from where they're cleverly buried inside the seemingly impenetrable cushions in the couch and accompanying chairs.

From inside the clock she pulls a baggy of diamonds, and the TV, a length of credit cards that needs to be disposed of.

By the time she's done sweeping the first floor, her pockets are full and the inside of her jacket holds more Ocean family secrets than she'd care to have on her person.

The stairs creak beneath her as she mounts them, wanting to take them two at a time - to get this over with - but knowing she has to be patient.

It's on the third to last step that she hears it. Or rather, doesn't. Because it doesn't creak. She takes one step back and reaches under the lip of the odd one out, feeling the little fingerprint scanner.

A second later the stair clicks open and she lifts the lid of it, staring down at memories that burn her tear ducts. Old gadgets and bits of blackmail staring back up at her. 

She dutifully deposits all the items on her person on top of memory lane and shuts the lid once more. She'll come back for it all, but she'll need both hands for her next stop.

The top of the stairs opens up to three different doors. To her left, a bathroom that Lou knows she'll have to retrieve more jewels from. Straight shot down the hall, a linen closet that is of no interest to her on her current mission. And to the right, De- _the_ bedroom.

Her hands itch to hitch a right, to be in that room again. The one where they ate cookie dough ice cream after their first, fifth, twentieth con. The one where they plotted countless ones that never came to fruition. The one where they drank themselves silly on a gorgeous bottle of something old and important and almost-

But she doesn't let herself. She heads to the bathroom, grabs the jewels from the toilet's tank, checks through the medicine cabinet just in case she's forgotten her hiding spots after all these years.

She's stalling, really. As badly as she wants to be in that room, she's never been in there without her. And doing so now feels like admitting defeat.

Or admitting it again. 

That call- that call had tasted like defeat in more ways than one. 

She was going to jail, but _no, no lawyers, they complicate things. I'll be fine without one, promise._

And Lou doesn't know what else to do because they don't have a game plan for this. There was never supposed to be a _this_ , there was just supposed to be a them, no matter what.

And it's that thought that does her in. Not the thousand and one thoughts much worse than that that had crossed her mind since that call, but that one measly thought.

She clips to the bedroom, knows there's just one last place to check and then she can go-

It was the reason Deb'd bought the place. It was old, still had the original flooring, the _loose_ original flooring, that is.

She'd fixed up all the spots save for one, tucked in the back corner of her closet. They'd always joked that when they got out of the business, they should leave a time capsule there, full of tales of their adventures and a souvenir or two that they could bare to part with.

And maybe they still will, if they ever untangle this mess.

The bed is unmade and the curtains are astray, open to the night sky that breathes heavily outside. The lamp on the bedside table is on, and the shade cocked to the side, illuminating the torn-through drawers beneath.

A quick escape, then. 

Against herself, she wonders if there had been a moment where she, where Deb, had stood in this room not hours before. If she had gotten a call or a text to tip her off. She wonders if she sat on the edge of that bed and let it all crash down for once, or if she took everything in stride, ran head on into it. She wonders if she hesitated, if she changed into her best outfit, her favorite. She wonders if she was comfortable, for a few final moments.

She doesn't even remember what truly happened, wants to cling to the world crafting itself in her head, a chain of events that console her but not the woman that lives within them.

Selfishness, it keeps you alive in the game that they play, but it also kills you. Poisons you inside out if you aren't;t careful enough. She wonders now about herself, if she was careful enough, if these are the seconds before the poison threads through her veins and slumps her to the floor.

It's the thought that no one would find her until the flies found home that keeps her upright, that moves her toward the closet, slides the slatted door open and dives in without thought. 

She has to bat through coats and dresses and slacks and this and that, things she has known for far too long, should have forgotten by now, but couldn't bring herself to let go of, but she makes it to that floorboard.

Prying at it with her prim hands, it's not the best choice, but it's the one that makes her feel the first thing that she's felt since she hopped that plane, and that makes it worth it. Her nails feel raw by the time she gets even a slight hold upon the lip of the board.

It pops soon thereafter, and her fingertips, they screech as she blinks tears down her face. Not from any kind of tangible pain, but from the crashing realization that this, this is real. 

Stuffed beneath the floor are a few rolled up pieces of paper, a bank bag, and-

She chokes down something hard in her throat, grabbing the I.D. up between shivering fingers. The woman - no, girl, she's no older than twenty here - is almost unrecognizable. Almost. Lou thinks that she'll always know that face, hell or high water. 

It's from their first game that they ran together, she'd needed it to get into the bar. Not to drink, but to whisper close with the bartender, with the other patrons, to slip wallets from hand tailored suit pockets, pluck watches off of unsuspecting wrists, and jewels from equally unknowing skin.

They'd sold everything off and opened the first of many offshore accounts. Bought luxurious clothes from contacts who didn't question the line of their money and draped themselves in the best fabric that could touch skin. They were marauders of their own cause, they were fire bright, they were young and naive and unstoppable and drunk on dazzling love.

She runs her thumb over the 2-D print of her face and the sliver of collar of the blue trenchcoat she's wearing in the photo. The perfect shade to draw any onlooker to her eyes, to keep from looking at her hands, wherever they were, whatever they were lifting.

The plastic is clicking against the floor before she knows what's happened, her fingers spasming as if it'll help, as if any damn thing will help her shipwreck heart as it capsizes.

She wants to lash out, wants to tear the walls down around her, collapse the building and the roof of the very sky. But as fast as the will to raize the earth hits, it's gone, and her hands are fumbling over the hangars in the closet, tugging, tugging until something comes loose. 

She slips her arms into it without even looking, pulling it taught around her until she's scented, same as it. The one thing that hadn't changed since she'd met Debbie Ocean was the perfume she wore, and now, it was all around her. A ghost or a shadow or a negative space, its hand on her shoulder, its weight on her chest.

When she finally lets her eyelids snap open, if only to purge the water from them, she's inevitably looking down. And in her view she realizes what she grabbed.

A blue trenchcoat, belt hanging loose as if to drag her to the floor. She pulls it tighter around herself, chokes out a cry at it brushing her cheek. 

-

Outside looking in she is an angel, head bowed and haloed in golden light. Inside out she is something fallen, wrung out and left to dry.

**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr @wlwshehulk !!


End file.
